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Creating a Carousel of Popular Posts in Blogger using Slick.js

Blogger, Google's free blogging platform, is an excellent choice for those who want to start sharing their content with the world quickly and easily. However, as your blog grows, you may want to add new features to make it more engaging and user-friendly. One such feature is a carousel of popular posts, which can help keep your readers engaged and encourage them to explore more of your content. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to create a carousel of popular posts in Blogger using Slick.js.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following:

  • A Blogger account with some published posts.
  • Basic HTML and JavaScript knowledge.

Step 1: Adding Slick.js to your Blogger blog

First, we need to add Slick.js, a popular carousel library, to our Blogger blog. Here's how you can do it:

  1. Go to the Slick.js website and download the latest version of Slick.min.js (approximately 68 KB). Save it in your computer.
  2. Log in to your Blogger account, go to your Layout tab, and click on the Add a gadget link under "Gadgets."
  3. Search for and add a new HTML/JavaScript gadget.
  4. In the Content section of the new gadget, paste the following code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="YOUR_Slick_JS_FILE_PATH_HERE"></script>
<style type="text/css">
/* Add your custom CSS styles here */
</style>

Replace YOUR_Slick_JS_FILE_PATH_HERE with the local path to the Slick.min.js file you downloaded in step 1.

  1. Save the gadget and make sure it's added to your blog's posts page or a specific page where you want the carousel to appear.

Step 2: Creating the carousel markup

Now, let's create the HTML markup for our carousel. In a new HTML/JavaScript gadget, paste the following code:

<div id="carousel" class="carousel slide" data-ride="carousel">
  <ol class="carousel-indicators">
    <!-- Carousel indicators -->
  </ol>
  <div class="carousel-inner">
    <!-- Carousel slides -->
  </div>
  <a class="carousel-control-prev" href="#carousel" role="button" data-slide="prev">
    <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span>
    <span class="sr-only">Previous</span>
  </a>
  <a class="carousel-control-next" href="#carousel" role="button" data-slide="next">
    <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span>
    <span class="sr-only">Next</span>
  </a>
</div>
<script src="YOUR_Slick_JS_FILE_PATH_HERE"></script>

Replace YOUR_Slick_JS_FILE_PATH_HERE with the same local path as before.

Step 3: Adding carousel items

Inside the <div class="carousel-inner"> tag, add HTML markup for each post you want to include in the carousel using the following format:

<div class="carousel-item active">
  <a href="POST_URL" target="_blank">
    <img src="IMAGE_URL" class="d-block w-100" alt="...">
  </a>
  <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block">
    <h5>Post Title</h5>
    <p>Post Description</p>
  </div>
</div>

Replace POST_URL with the URL of the post, and IMAGE_URL with the image URL for each post. Make sure to add as many <div class="carousel-item"> as you have posts and set the first one as active.

Step 4: Customizing the carousel

You can customize the carousel's appearance by adding CSS styles inside the <style> tag or via an external CSS file. For instance, you can adjust the width and height of the carousel slides, change colors, font sizes, and more.

Conclusion

With these steps, you now have a working carousel of popular posts on your Blogger blog using Slick.js. This not only makes your blog look more visually appealing but also provides an easy way for readers to explore your content in greater detail. Happy blogging!

Published July, 2017